Friday, April 22, 2022

Forming Resilient Children, a book review

Forming Resilient Children: a book by Holly Jeanean Allen, IVP, 2021.

Holly Catterton Allen (the author's pen name) has produced a very helpful book about raising children to be spiritually healthy. The book is obviously born out of detailed research and observances in her project leadership at Lipscomb University. She and her students worked with children who were experiencing major personal trauma in their lives. She and her students found that lecturing these children and pressuring them to face their troubles was not useful. Instead, children benefited through relationships, particularly, relationships with self, others and God. Children grew stronger and took more control of their plights (rather than stewing in their victimhood) by gently expressing themselves in art, wonder and times of quietness when they can ponder God. The roles of the adults in their lives is to gently listen, express support and provide opportunities to think inwardly and outwardly. These activities build relationships and they offer hope. Allen aptly quotes Vaclav Havel, "Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out."
While Allen collected most of her data from troubled children, she observes that everyone experiences personal trauma in their lives. It is a good thing to have friends and God, and a way back to the self-relationship, to provide meaning in those circumstances. "Every generation faces some form of upheaval and loss," she writes, "and this generation can take its place alongside those who have survived earlier crises, perhaps making connections that can contribute to their own resilience" (174).
I am 59 years old and I found a lot of personal benefit from the pages of this book. I am able to understand how my own childhood, with all the difficulties and losses, forged me in large part into the person I am today. I did not have anyone guiding me through those circumstances; but I can see that I found my way through them. Particularly, my relationship with God was critical to my coping.
I appreciated Allen's observance that children are often shuffled to the side when there is trauma in their lives. Instead of attending funerals of loved ones, for example, they are often shuffled off to baby sitters. A better treatment of the children is to provide space and opportunities for them to grieve along with the adults in their lives. If they are not afforded these opportunities, their loss will likely go unresolved. They may have not been able to go through the necessary process of grieving.
Allen did not mention it; but I know that children who do not have support in their losses often develop personality disorders and grow up to be narcissists. Those children are much better off having a community of good relationships with friends, God and self.

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